Castellanos, a Florida State transfer, had been one of head coach Joey McGuire's top options for short-yardage plays. Without him, the Red Raiders leaned on quarterback Will Hammond, whose runs mostly came from scrambling rather than designed short-yardage calls. Hammond has played well lately, McGuire said. But losing Castellanos still cut into Tech's run game options against Colorado.
The late-notice ruling gave the coaching staff almost no time to adjust its game plan. McGuire turned to other players to try to fill the short-yardage gap once Castellanos was ruled out.
For Tech fans, this is the kind of behind-the-scenes problem that shows up on the scoreboard without anyone outside the program understanding why. A short-yardage package built around one player can fall apart fast when a court ruling, not an injury or a coaching decision, takes him off the field. That leaves Hammond and the rest of the offense scrambling, literally, to cover plays they used to hand to someone else.